Elijah: Calhoun Men _ Erotic Paranormal Wolf Shifter Romance Read Online Free Page A

areas.” Elijah had just used them recently to see about a project he was going to look into helping out. “Noah owns several companies like that. Why do you think he’s mad at you? If anyone, he was more than likely mad at your stepfather for whatever he’d done to you. I’m assuming that he was fired because of something that had happened and Noah knew about it.”
    “It was at his house that my...that Howard, Howard Merrill, decided to leave me.” When she got up to pace, he let her. Not that he had it in his mind to stop her, but he wanted her to feel comfortable around him. “I knew they were going to do it. Not there, but that they were going to kick me out. I’d heard him talking to Gloria one night. But Noah had this party, a Christmas thing that he’d invited all his workers and their families to. I was sixteen then, and had never been to such a lavish place before. Noah had been making the rounds…Joe was with him. I think she was telling him who was who. He didn’t come to the offices a lot…I guess because of what he is.”
    “Yes. Noah is a vampire.” He tried to equate the man he knew now to one having a Christmas party. He was sort of a recluse, Elijah thought. “Had you ever been to one of his parties before?”
    “No. But that doesn’t mean anything. I mean, I didn’t go a lot of places with the family after he married Gloria.” Elijah was going to look into this as soon as he had enough facts. “Anyway, I was sent to the kitchen to see if Gloria could have something for her headache. I think I knew then that this was going to be it. And when I came back to where they’d been, they were gone. Even the van that we came in wasn’t in the lot any longer.”
    “How did you involve Noah? I’m assuming that you did.” She nodded and leaned against the wall. Elijah could see that she was still hurt by what had happened to her. And he didn’t really blame her. “Noelle?”
    “I went to find him. Him specifically. I think because he was really kind to me when we got there. He fussed over how...he said I was pretty. I’d not had anyone tell me that before.” He started to tell her she was beautiful, but she spoke again. “I asked to use his phone. He unlocked his cell phone and handed it to me. But he didn’t move away, just stood there as if he wanted to make sure that I didn’t run off with it. When Howard answered the phone, he took the phone back and put it on speaker phone and nodded at me.”
    ~~~
    Noelle remembered the conversation like it was only a few minutes ago. Howard had barked in the phone, asking who was calling him. She’d told him it was her.
    “What is it you want from me now, Noelle? I think, by leaving you behind, we’ve made it clear that we don’t want you around us anymore. Hell, you’re not of my blood or my wife’s. The only reason we kept you this long is that we were afraid you’d die if we kicked you out, and someone would cut off that check of yours.” She asked him what check. “The government pays us to care for your ass, believe it or not. And that money is going to go a lot further without you there sucking it dry. Not that you got much of anything anyway, but there was enough going in your belly that we had to give you. Now that you’re older, we figured that you could fend for yourself or not. It really doesn’t matter to us.”
    Noah had her ask if he was making enough at his job. “I don’t understand. I thought you said you made good money working for Mr. Stark. You were even planning a long vacation with us.”
    He told her not her, never her. “And yes, I make great money working for that man. But there is always room for more, don’t you think?” She asked him what she was supposed to do now. “I really don’t care. But you’re to never darken our doorstep again. Never mention us as being your family, and if I find out that you did, then I will hunt you down and make you hurt worse than I did before we left today. If I were